446 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [April, 



Doings of Societies. 



The third meeting of the Harris Club was held at 35 Court 

 Street, Boston, on Friday evening, January, 19, 1900. A 

 formal Constitution was adopted, and officers were elected as 

 follows : President, A. G. Weeks, Jr.; Vice Presidents, H. H. 

 Newxomb and P. G. Bolster ; Secretary and Treasurer, W. L. 

 W. Field. Communications dealing with Protective Coloration 

 were presented by Messrs. E. B. Clapp, A. P. Hall and A. H. 

 Clark, and were discussed at some length. Mr. H. H. New- 

 comb mentioned a specimen of atheroma scpulcralis from York, 

 Maine, and Mr. W. F. Low told of the capture of the same 

 species at electric light in Jamaica Plain, Mass. 



W. ly. W. Field, Secretary. 



At the fourth meeting of the Harris Club, held at 35 Court 

 Street, Boston, on the evening of February 16, several interest- 

 ing communications were made. Mr. Lawrence Brooks showed 

 an enormous cocoon of Attacus cecropia, which he had found 

 attached to the lower part of a bush in a swamp. Mr. R. W. 

 Denton remarked on the frequent occurrence of such inflated 

 cocoons in similar situations ; he conjectured that they might 

 have a greater capacity for resisting inundation than is pos- 

 ses.sed by the usual form, though it would bediff^cult to account 

 for such an adaptatioii to extremely local conditions. Mr. W. 

 L. W. Field hazarded the suggestion that an exces.sive supply 

 of water might increase the production of .silk, if not, indeed, 

 the actual size of the larva. Mr. A. H. Kirkland told of the 

 discovery of an egg-clu.ster of the Gypsy moth, coated with 

 algse, on piling which was submerged in .salt water at high 

 tides. The eggs hatched when the proper time arrived. 

 Apropos of Dr. Mayer's experiments with Attariis pronict/ira, he 

 briefly recounted his own investigations of the mating instinct 

 in the Gypsy moth. The finding of two pupae in a .single co- 

 coon of the Clisiocampa disstria was also mentioned by Mr. 

 Kirkland, and Mr. lirooks told of a like case of co-operative 

 cocoon spinning by larvae of Ifalisdola carya-. Mr. Field 

 remarked on the great variation observed from year to year in 

 the insect fauna of New ICngland, and the importance of a 



